Pages

Thursday, March 17, 2011

If You're Going To Make An Omelet...

None of the memories I have are what anyone would call "crystal clear." For some reason, time has robbed me of that spectacular 20/20 hindsight that people are always talking about. If I had to place a number/number on the strength of my hindsight, I'd have to say that at best it would be what most doctors would call, "legally blind." That being said, I'm very fortunate to have 3 younger brothers who all seem to have better memories than me. They can recall vividly each time I tortured them, each time I made them bleed, and each time I was punished for those transgressions.

Today, we're going to talk about the time I almost caused the oldest of the younger brothers to lose an eye. Now, you may remember an incident that happened here recently where I almost caused the middle younger brother to lose his eye as well. Suffice it to say, I'm bad with eyes. If you value your sight, you shouldn't play tennis with me...or get on a trampoline with me.

Who here had a trampoline growing up? How much fun did you have on it? I'm telling you, as a poor white family, I don't think it gets any better than having a trampoline. They're kind of cheap, they're durable if you set them up right, and you barely have to try at all if you want to kill someone on it. A couple of double bounces and a shove, and you've taught Tommy the neighbor kid that it's not cool to come over uninvited and jump on YOUR trampoline.

One fine day, me, a couple of my friends, and The Groom were all outside having fun on the trampoline. All the sudden, someone looked at us and said, "Have you ever played Crack the Egg?" We all kind of shook our heads, because creativity was discouraged around our house. I can't say that I blame my parents for that, if only because of what happened next. The kid went through the rules of Crack the Egg. 1. The egg scrunches into the fetal position, and tries not to "come apart." 2. The other people on the trampoline double bounce the piss out of the person until they "come apart." To a bunch of pre-teens, this sounded like the most fun you could have with your pants on, literally.

The Groom was the youngest of us all. He was, naturally, going to be the egg. However, it didn't take much coaxing, and I think that's because he wanted to impress us. So he got into position, and the mayhem started. We started bouncing and double bouncing and close bouncing and maybe even a bit of "punch" bouncing went down. I'm not saying we played fair, mostly because...my brother was awesome at being an egg. Dude was impenetrable, y'all. He curled up in that little ball and acted like he had been traumatized by a violent family episode, which consequently was about to take place.

Everyone here knows how a trampoline works. It's mostly in the springs that surround it and attach to a metal pole. The springs are also metal. When those springs uncoil, there is a little gap between the coils. When they coil back up, that gap closes. In the meantime, if something gets in between those coils and doesn't get removed, it gets the ever loving mess pinched out of it. I know, because I had fingers, leg skin, arm skin, neck skin, and a toe pinched in those coils, and each time I thought I'd been shot.

Well, my brother was still being the Rhianna of eggs, and we were trying to be the Chris Browns of cracking him, and I'm still not sure how it all went down, but somehow we got an epic double bounce out of him. This bounce sent him to the edge of the trampoline, onto the springs, which weren't coiled, which is great. But. Whenever we launched ourselves into the air again, those spring coiled back, and he hadn't taken the care to move his face, again, because he was awesome at being the egg. The part of his face stuck in the coils? Oh, yeah, that would be HIS EYELID. About the time the springs closed on a rather tender part of the eye, his body was LAUNCHED back into the air, pretty much ripping his eyelid from the semi-permanent if not somewhat uncomfortable new home they'd chosen. He screamed bloody murder, but I'll be danged if he didn't stay in an egg position. Now, I'm sure most physicians would have moved on to calling it the fetal position, and they would say he was in it because of the "massive trauma." We just thought he was a trooper, and all that screaming was a battle cry to get him hyped up. We even tried to crack him a little more after the incident, just because we thought he was that good.

It would be pretty cool right now to be able to say that the eyelid came off, but it didn't. It just bled for a while. The thing of it was, we had to pry that kid open just to figure out why he was crying. To this day, I don't think anyone will ever top my brother when it comes to being the egg. I should probably get him a trophy sometime for it. Something that just says, "Crack The Egg Champion, 1990-present."

I'm a husband, father, son, brother, and friend. I teach English and Literature to the youth of today. I love Jesus and my mother, and I'll gladly introduce you to both. I love photography and writing. Duke basketball keeps me occupied for half the year, and hating Chapel Hill keeps me busy the other half. As you can tell from the title of my blog, I like stories. I'm a big guy with a big voice, trying desperately to be heard by someone before The Lord takes me home. Let's be best friends.